


Stay

by tvshipsetc



Category: New Amsterdam (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:00:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvshipsetc/pseuds/tvshipsetc
Summary: Helen needs a reason to stay at New Amsterdam.
Relationships: Max Goodwin & Helen Sharpe, Max Goodwin/Helen Sharpe, Sharpwin - Relationship
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	Stay

We think that our hearts are gifts that we have a choice in deciding who gets to receive it and claim it as theirs. We think we have so much control over the outcomes but truthfully, if given the chance to really lead our lives, we’d probably mess it up more than than we’d care to admit. But what happens when life gets unpredictably messy and our hearts become the possession of those we never fathomed we’d give it to? And we helplessly watch as the recipient with just a smile, their presence or some words, ensnare our life force by simply being who they are?

She trapped him. She had him. She had his heart completely. The funniest part of all this was that he had hers just as much. They were each other’s kryptonite. No “S” on their chests could withstand the look in their eyes or the softness of their voices. 

But what if, you have to face someone walking away with your heart knowing that you’d never be able to survive their absence?

Is it true that if you’ve done it before then you can do it again? Maybe it holds for some things in life but not everything. She’d argue that she was incapable but still, she was his _all of the above_. Seeing him through to remission, watching him find his groove back after his wife’s death and searching his eyes for the twinkle she saw the first time they met, was all she ever wanted. She was there for all of it, just as she promised she would be. 

Just when things seemed to be heading in the right direction, with her and Max finally back on good terms, life dealt their friendship another blow. She was stripped of her titles as co-chair of Oncology and Deputy Medical Director. Two things that she never intended to dissociate herself from. She’d never forget how she felt hearing Brantley say those words to her. It was embarrassing and she felt marooned by feelings worthlessness and confusion. She didn’t think anyone would understand. Within an hour, she managed to convince herself that leaving New Amsterdam was better than the alternative- staying and working under Castro. 

Helen lived her life more by facts than feelings- something that served her well for the better part of her time on earth. Her decision to leave felt like a no brainer after she laid out the facts. She had every reason to. She spent close to five years serving that place. Booking so many appointments that she’d leave work late almost daily, going up against the board multiple times to justify her need for yet another machine and the worst of them yet, sharing her department with someone who valued outcomes more than the quality of life of the patient.

She wasn’t one to complain. Pre- Castro, she loved it there. New Amsterdam became her home away from home. She knew shortcuts to get to the wards, could determine the time it would take her to get from one end of the hospital to the next and her face was well known by the staff and patients alike. Truly, there’d have to be something spectacularly wrong with a person to dislike one hair on Helen’s head. She was the favorite and arguably most accomplished and popular doctor at New Amsterdam. Her reputation for being “all in” preceded her-something that Max would never let slip that he knew before he even met her. The man did his research before bouncing into her, accidentally on purpose twice, on his first day. 

———-

She opened the door to her office sighing as she walked past the threshold. “This is it Helen,” she thought to herself. She had been mentally preparing herself for this dreadful day for weeks, unable to entertain the thought of anything else. She knew it was necessary, by her estimation anyway. She tried, after much coercion from Max on one occasion, to stick around and be Valentina’s subordinate. It wasn’t working for her. Her disagreement with her treatment plans was always a point of contention. The constant need to run everything by her as if she knew better about the patients Helen had been treating for months to years all seemed to be too much. She had to leave. 

Providence Hospital promised her a brand new oncology wing with state of the art equipment, double her salary at New Amsterdam and co-operative staff eager to learn from the well established Dr. Helen. All of those perks didn’t peak her interest as much as the peace of mind in a new city that she felt she so desperately needed. She resisted thoughts of what she was leaving behind or how much this decision to move away would affect those who had grown to love her. 

Bloom couldn’t understand and made it her mission every day since finding out to give her a reason to stay. Her efforts were futile. Iggy respected her decision to leave knowing that there was nothing he could ever say to change her mind. It was already made up. He gifted her with bags of sour patch kids to get through her stressful moments as if Helen was similar to him with stress eating. Kapoor quoted the Bhagavad Gita saying to her that change is the only constant, giving her his blessing to explore new horizons and make a difference elsewhere. Reynolds was concerned, much like Bloom, but opted for a hands off approach. He decided to just let it be. His controlling nature was better served in his OR than in the personal lives of his colleagues. 

Max. 

One would think that he would have bombarded her, much like Bloom did, to give her a reason to stay. Wrong. When she first told him, in the middle of a code silver weeks before, he initially tried to play it off. He looked at her face, saw the pain but seriousness in her eyes and couldn’t help but remember their conversation on the rooftop. In the time he knew her, she was never one to joke around with things of this nature. But he didn’t want to believe her. Denial was his best friend, for at least a day. He needed to sleep on it. 

When he tried to approach her the next day about plans to set up a meeting with the board to fight for her and she resisted, he knew that she was really serious about leaving. Somehow, he managed to convince her to at least give it a shot. He practically recited her achievements since working at New Amsterdam from memory and pulled up multiple records of patients who were almost at the brink of death that Helen managed to save with her meticulous treatment plans. He made every reason for her to stay about the patients. He never once brought up how much she meant to him or how much he just couldn’t do life without her. She gave him two weeks but made it crystal clear to him that she’d leave if she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. 

She wouldn’t want to admit it to him, but she thought he would fight harder to make her stay. She thought he’d be the unrelenting Max she knew, chasing her through corridors with clasped hands and puppy dog eyes begging her not to leave him. Much like Bloom, she expected him to bombard her daily and do something extravagant to make her change her mind. She imagined that he’d walk into her office and give some cheesy speech or give her some offer that she absolutely couldn’t refuse. She thought their friendship, or whatever they were to each other, was worth more to him. She thought he needed her more than this. If she were honest with him, and maybe herself, she’d admit that the fact that he let her even reach this point of packing boxes, booking a one way ticket to D.C, finding a new apartment and writing her resignation letter meant that her decision to leave was the right one. Max was okay with it. He had already let her go, making the one reason she would have even reconsidered staying null and void. 

She looked around her office and saw the piles of boxes stacked with her medical journals and other books, trying to soak it all in. She walked up to a box that held her medical degrees protected in black picture frames and ran her fingers across them. She worked so hard to reach this place. She graduated at the top of her class in medical school, pioneered so many research papers in oncology and managed to acquire a spot at one of America’s oldest public hospitals. In the span of her career, she knew she had done a lot she should be proud of. But truthfully, she still didn’t feel like it was enough to keep her at New Amsterdam. She thought she could be a good doctor anywhere. 

When it all started to sink in that she was really leaving and moving to Washington D.C. , a tear fell from her face. Mere weeks ago, she had so many dreams for this place. She had intentions of squeezing in some press with her already jam packed schedule to source funding to build a new floor so that Valentina could treat her patients away from her. She had plans for medical school students to learn medicine outside of the four walls of New Amsterdam and reach the community with the hope that they’d understand that empathy and compassion are the foundations of good medicine. But it wasn’t just the medicine that kept her heart there. She thought she’d raise her family here, in New York, the city she fell so madly in love with years prior. She had private schools already picked out, the neighborhood she’d want to raise her child, or children if she were lucky. But life has a funny way of turning your plans upside down and redirecting you to places and people you never even thought of. 

Just as she reached to wipe the tear, he walked in uninvited as he always does. She didn’t even realize he was there until she heard the door close behind her. She quickly wiped it away speaking to herself to hold it together long enough so she could actually leave. The last thing she needed was for him to make this harder than it already was. He had a ton of chances in the last few weeks and he did nothing. 

“Hey,” he said barely above a whisper with sadness evident in his voice. 

“Hey,” she managed to croak out, clearing her throat when she realized just how shaky her voice was.

He ignored the fact that she was clearly crying. 

“Last day huh?” he said trying to delay and remind himself of the painful truth. 

“Yup,” was all she could manage to say, trying to avoid the finality of all of this. 

He leaned up against a cabinet in her office almost needing its support to get him through this. She leaned on her desk as if its wooden structure could bear the heaviness her heart alone was carrying around. He kept staring at her, unable to get anything else out. She wished she could make small talk in that moment, but words evaded her. She just kept looking at him and the more she did was the more the tears wanted to flow. She had to let him go. After all, she was convinced that he had already let go of her.

She was cursing herself under her breath because just seeing his tear filled, puppy dog blue eyes was suddenly making her resolve to leave crumble. This was not the time for Max to pull a ‘Max’ on her. She knew it would be hard but Max alone, could make this one hundred times harder for her than it already was.

She knew deep down that she didn’t have the strength to walk out of his life forever but the logical part of her brain told her it was for the best. Silently, though, she hoped he wouldn’t just let her leave. If anything, Helen knew Max had the ability to make something so clear to her muddied by the complicated and unspoken feelings they had for each other but were too afraid to let hit the air. 

They saw the pain in each other’s eyes but neither of them felt strong enough to acknowledge it. Finally mustering up the courage, he managed to say, “don’t leave.” Two words that he felt would be enough to anchor her forever. Beneath those words, lay an ocean of reasons why he needed her to stay. 

The moment she heard it, she closed her eyes, trying to ground herself in her decision and resist him. Her eyebrows furrowed and he could see, just by the look on her face, that she was fighting it. He kept his distance from her knowing that if he came too close he’d never let her go-physically and literally. 

“Max, please don’t do this,” she managed to say while her heart was whispering ‘what took you so long?’ The tears immediately fell and she could hardly believe that she was bearing all her emotions for him to see. 

He was struggling to respect her decision and concede to her request. 

“I can’t lose you. Not like this. You know how much I need you.”

“You don’t anymore. You don’t need me anymore. I did what I promised. I saved your life,” she said trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince him.

He huffed. Hearing her say those words felt like a dagger to his heart. He didn’t want to believe that her place in his life was just about his cancer.

“You did save my life. But what is the point Helen, if I have this cancer free life to live and you’re not in it? Do you think I want that? I’ve suffered enough and I’ve lost enough. And a lot of things weren’t in my control. But I’d be damned if I let you leave me. If I let you leave us.”

“Us” meant him and Luna but she hadn’t even realized it. She just assumed he was referring to the people at New Amsterdam like he did the day of the code silver.

“I’ve tried Max. I tried to work under her and I just can’t. I can’t watch my patients suffer through another clinical trial when my hands are tied. The board won’t listen to anything I have to say. My reputation here has practically been denigrated to nothing more than the oncologist who got arrested. I don’t think I can bounce back from this. But maybe this is what I need, a fresh start in a new city. A chance to get a do over and make things right again.”

He realized he wasn’t getting through to her and his determination was fading. He didn’t know what he could possibly say to get her to believe that staying with him was worth it. He just wanted her to realize it was worth it.

“Did it mean anything to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“This,” he gestured between both of them.

“You know I care about you.”

“So why won’t you stay? I want to fight for you but you won’t let me. Let me fight for you. I’d put everything on the line just to keep you here and make sure you’re back where you need to be,” he said sincerely with pleading eyes practically begging her to reconsider.

“You can’t promise me that and you know it. Brantley won’t let me over that easily and we both know that,” she said dryly. 

“You don’t know that Helen,” he inched closer to her as she folded her arms as a sign of rejection.

“Helen,” he said softer this time reaching out to unfold her arms.

“Look at me,” he said as he held her shoulders in his hands. He continued, ”You know you can talk to me right? What’s the real reason you’re running away?”

“We’ve been over this Max. I can’t work with her,” she said averting his gaze. 

“There is something else you’re not telling me. You couldn’t even look me in the eye to say that.”

“I-I,” she hesitated closing her eyes.

“Helen talk to me. I’m right here,” he said softly as he lifted her chin so their eyes met. 

“Why didn’t you fight for me?” she finally let out, as the tears spilled rapidly down her face as though they were trying to escape the security of her tear ducts. She was looking at him completely vulnerable and unafraid in that moment. She didn’t overthink her honesty. She just couldn’t stifle the truth that was eating away at her for the past two weeks.

“What do you mean?” he asked, needing her to say her truth before he spoke his. The last thing he wanted was for them to leave each other on bad terms. If she had to leave, he wanted to know that he tried and they said everything they needed to say to each other. 

With an unmistakable sting her in voice, one of pain and anger, she said, “I told you I was leaving. You took a whole day before you addressed it. And then when you finally did, you never mentioned it again until today. You didn’t fight to make me stay. And today, of all days, when I’m supposed to leave, you come into my office with your ridiculous, tear-filled, puppy dog eyes , saying that you need me when you had two weeks to make me stay. I just wanted you to give me a reason to stay!”

Max didn’t realize how badly his silence and inaction over the past few weeks affected her. The truth is, it wasn’t really about her. It was about him and his denial over losing her again-but this time, to another city, another hospital and distance that he wasn’t sure he could do anything about. Losing her felt like someone was pulling away a part of him that he knew he couldn’t get back if he lost it. It was about him facing one of his greatest fears and feeling helpless to the curveballs life kept throwing his way. 

“I was always scared to lose you,” he said with unrestrained vulnerability in his voice, as though he was leaving his wounded heart uncovered for her to see. 

“You asked me why remission wasn’t wonderful for me and I’m sure you assumed it was _only_ about Georgia. The fact that she’s not here to share this with me and we could somehow go back to the not so perfect marriage we had..” He scoffed as the truth about his imperfect wife and marriage hit the air. It was something he’d never mentioned to Helen before. Not with this much pain and contempt in his voice.

“Maybe it was but not entirely. Remission always scared me because there was this voice constantly whispering to me, ‘you’re going to lose her.’ The clairvoyant told me that. I never told you until now. I don’t know if you could imagine how it wrecked me when you told me you were going to leave. One of my greatest fears was coming to fruition and it was a dream I never wanted to become a reality.”

He reached for her hand again and held on to it firmly. “Helen, I don’t want to lose you. As crazy as it sounds, I’d rather have cancer than lose you. I’m not trying to manipulate you to stay. I know I don’t have cancer and I hope I never do again, but you are the very best thing that has come from all of this. To know that I could walk the hallways of this hospital when the entire world is on my shoulders and take an elevator to the eleventh floor, open the door to your office without knocking and take one look at that smile on your face. It makes this crazy, unpredictable and absolutely stressful job and life, worth it. You make living worth it. You make it worth it because you have _never_ once given up on me. I’ve given you reasons to leave. I’ve pushed you away, especially when I was grieving. I only have one very good reason for you to stay. Me. Stay for me. Stay with me. Our relationship has been so one sided and it has bothered me for so long. Finally, I have this opportunity to fight for you and show you that I’m all in. To show you that I want to be your anchor. I’m strong enough now to hold you down. I want to make you smile on your worst days. I want to hold your hand and tell you it’s going to be okay. Because it will be. I want to crack silly jokes and watch you roll your eyes at me as though I’m not the funniest man you’ve ever met. Let me be _your_ all of the above. I’m able and I’m ready. Just...stay with me.”

By this time, Helen could hardly see straight because of the tears that were gushing down her face. She was not one to be so emotionally open but everything Max was saying was everything she hoped he would’ve said in the last two weeks. She knew she was a sucker for Max Goodwin’s speeches but this one was in a league of its own. 

He reached out to wipe her tears, rubbing his tear stained hands on his scrubs. He managed to get a light chuckle out of her but she still said nothing. She took him in, watching him practically bursting with anticipation to hear her say something, anything, so he could actually breathe. He was either going to leave this office the happiest he had been in months or the most wounded, losing the one person that held his entire world together. 

In the time they stood there, her brain was trying to convince her to still leave because absolutely nothing changed with Max’s speech. She would still be Castro’s subordinate and be stripped of her titles. But the way her heart was thumping and her eyes were glowing looking straight into Max’s eyes, she knew, her feelings were taking preeminence. She wouldn’t ignore the facts because that would be entirely silly of her and go against everything that made her who she was. Instead, she accepted them. She still wasn’t co-chair of Oncology or the Deputy Medical Director and she honestly didn’t know if she would ever be again. But, she was Max Goodwin’s all of the above, even when she was not trying to be. Max wanted her and needed her. He wanted to reciprocate everything she so selflessly and willingly gave to him in the time they had known each other. He gave her the one reason she wanted to stay-him. 

“I’m staying,” she said softly but affirmatively. 

Genuinely surprised, he grabbed onto her, pulling her small frame in, for the tightest hug and picking her up in the process. 

“Put me down,” she said rather unconvincingly as he twirled her around her office.

After he pleased himself, he finally put her down but still held on to her.

“You could let me go now,” she said with her face buried in his chest.

“Nope. Never letting you go.”

“I’m serious Max. I need to pee.”

He let her go and she started laughing uncontrollably. 

When he saw her face, he looked at her, completely disgusted that he fell for that silly lie.

“You don’t need to pee, do you?”

“Nope,” she said with the biggest grin on her face.

“I can’t believe I fell for that!”

“I can’t believe that it still works! Anyway, I love you. Thanks for convincing me to stay,” she said nonchalantly, completely oblivious to what she just said.

“Now run along. I have an office to unpack, a plane ticket to cancel, emails to write and a whole lot of other stuff to undo. I’m already exhausted. Wait till Bloom gets wind that I’m staying. You’re never going to hear the end of this!”

Max just looked at her in shock because she was either ignoring what she said or really didn’t know what she just admitted. It was just so effortless. She said it as though it was some by the way admission and not a heavily loaded one that could change the entire course of their relationship. He didn’t quite know what to do with it but he turned on his heels, leaving the office feeling just as heavy as he came in it. 

Helen Sharpe loves him. He tried to let those words sink in with every step he took, creating more distance between them. 

Unknowingly, she gave him a swift kick in the butt with her by the way ‘I love you.’ He knew he’d have to do something about their relationship if he really never wanted to lose her-not just to another city or job, but to another man. Though she hardly ever wore her heart on her sleeve like he did, he knew what she said came from a genuine place. Max had to be more aggressive and pursue her if he wanted any shot at them ever charting romantic waters. He walked away with a million ideas circulating his mind about how he’d make Helen stay with him, forever. He smiled at the realization that his heart was in an office on the eleventh floor of New Amsterdam and there was nothing he could ever do to retrieve it.


End file.
